Apple gadgets, ranked

30:49It feels like a bigger product in that way than the iPad. And also, like, to your point, David, I feel like AirTags were just such a wild card product because in me trying to think of where I was going to put the AirTag was actually the biggest headache I had in coming into this ranking. Because, like, where the frick does this thing go? It's, like, not number one, but it's surprisingly iconic. Like, I don't know. It is, like, Kleenex-y in that sense. Like, everybody calls the other ones AirTags in a real way. And, you know, I've tested so many of the other ones. I wrote our buying guide on it.

31:28I'm sorry. None of them are as good as the AirTag, even though they exist. Like, Pebblebee's great. But, you know, the way that the AirTags work in Find My, listen, I bought cases for our shitty Apple TV remotes that have AirTags in them. Like a little case for the AirTags. And it has been a game changer. I don't know if you watched the season three of The Summer I Turned Pretty. There is an episode that is just one giant air tag commercial because our protagonist belly goes to Paris and she doesn't, you know, use common sense and gets pickpocketed. Her bag gets stolen. And in a wild chase through Paris, she finds them.

32:13Because why? She had an air tag in her bag. And I was like, you know, having tested it extensively, yeah. Like it's a little scary how well these things work and fit into your life. And I think it's universally beloved, whereas the iPad is not universally beloved by millennials. So there you go. The millennial vote. The millennial vote is just going to put the iPad at six. I'm sorry. Right. But then it is tricky. the air tag, I could argue for number two through five. It would make sense in any of those spots, I think. Alright. This feels bad, but alright. iPad goes in sixth place. Let's take a break so I can collect my own emotions, and then we're going to come back and we're going to do the top five.

33:03We'll be right back.

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36:21All right, we're back. I'm not over it, but we're moving on. uh i just i already know this one's going to be a fight too because v what do you have at fifth i actually have air tags at five uh okay even after all that that fighting i know you love air tags so much that you put them fifth place no it's just because like you know compared to an ipad i think the air tag is more iconic more universal uh better as a product, but compared to everything else that remains on this list, I actually put AirTags at five. You think AirTags are more iconic than the iPad? I'm so hung up on this still. You think if you just went up to a random hundred people and you were like, AirTag, more of them would know what you're talking about than iPad?

37:11Yeah. No chance. No chance. Listen. You are out of your mind. I think. I am not out of my mind because I actually had a conversation recently with a friend who had been with T-Mobile for freaking ever. And they were like, you know, should I get an iPad? I don't know. Like, I just don't know what to do with it besides watch things on TV. Yeah, but they were asking you if they should buy an iPad. You've already proven my point. No, no, no, no, no. They were asking if they should accept an iPad for free from their carrier. And you know what they did? They said, nah, I'm good. That was dumb. Oh, you know what?

37:47That's how my parents... To be clear, everybody, If anybody offers you any of these products for free, you should say yes. No, unless they have a cellular plan attached to them, in which case you are my parents. And that's how they got those goddamn iPads because they went to the Verizon store and they were like, here you go. And now they're paying for these things for the rest of their lives. And yeah. Listen, she was just like, the only time I'd use them is on an airplane. And I don't go on airplanes that often. So she turned down a free iPad and then bought AirTags. So that's really just thinking about that.

38:22I was like, obviously, that's only one anecdotal case. But I was like, I would do the same thing. I would do the same thing. So that's why I put the AirTags ahead of it, though. I will say it was a wild card. Allison, is this also where you had it? Can we keep talking about the iPad for 30 minutes? No. I could, yes. No, this is a tough spot. I think I do put air tags here in number five. You guys agreeing on everything, by the way, really starting to bum me out. I don't like this. I'm feeling very ganged up on right now. We did not collude before this episode. Not one bit either. We were not side channeling.

39:05No. Okay. I'm going to talk about the iPad again for a second. Like, if you if I presented my husband with an AirTag or an iPad, I was like, which of these things do you want would be useful in your life and you actually want to have you would take the AirTag? Like, I think he would just not understand or care what to do with the iPad. I think. Yeah. So but but then it's like so wrong. It's it's hard to put it higher, though, because. Do you know what an iPad can do is also locate you. Like if you just want to have an iPad in your bag, I'll be able to use Find My to know where you are. Attach my keys.

39:44It's basically an AirTag. To my app. To my iPad. You'll never lose it again. I have an iPad mini. The original iPad mini. I just found it. It was in a closet. It's been there for at least five years. Exactly. Exactly. This is. Okay. Okay, granted, the two of you gadget reviewers who spend all of their time sitting at a laptop and using 400 ,000 phones may not be iPad people. I'm not disputing this fact. I'm arguing that maybe you're not the normal computing person in the world. But we are the people who are ranking Apple gadgets. Allison, how many phones do you think you could pick up and show to the camera right now in the next 30 seconds?

40:28Is it more than six? Oh, it's so many more than six. it's a disgusting amount i can pick up the ipad then you not caring about the ipad mini is not a good case yeah okay but i stand by it all right so i'm okay with air tag being five i had it at six i'm fine with it being at five um i'm not gonna tell you what i had at five because i just i can't i can't deal with that fight right now and it's gonna come back up um i'm good with the air tag being five we'll put it there and to be clear i love the air tag i just think it is like one of the more commoditized versions of the things that apple does and also if you want to talk about why the air tag is better it's also like a perfect summation of apple's like walled garden monopoly powers uh but that's a whole different story um allison what did you have in fourth okay i'm gonna put the apple watch um and i think it's just it's like kind of mixed up with like two three and four I think could kind of go any direction.

41:30Yeah, Apple Watch is also, you know, feels like the category leader in the way that it is just kind of the best version of the thing that it is. Maybe also due to some walled garden things. The benefits, like, but I know fewer people who have gone out and gotten an Apple Watch and they love them. Like I'm a convert. I'm a smartwatch like person now. And I but I can like I know the friends that I have. I could list them off right now. It's like they have an Apple Watch and they love it. But it's not so much the thing you seek out, you know. I just I just want to reset the rules here a little bit because this is important.

42:16I worry we are coming to a place where we're going to put the iPhone first because it is the most successful. Oh, don't worry. And that is not the rubric here. iPhone is not number one in my list. It is not. So we're going to have a fight later. It's not number one on my list either. But I think like. Oh, we're going to fight. We're going to fight real hard. Okay, I'll just tell you this now. I had iPhone at five. What? What? And I am prepared to make that case. The iPhone? Steve Jobs' iPhone? No. It is definitively not Steve Jobs' iPhone anymore. Okay, okay. I love the chaos. But I think the rubric here is best device.

42:51And I actually think like, I think there's a case for the Apple watch to be here. I actually had the Apple watch here. But I think you could also make the case that the Apple watch should be higher because the Apple watch is a terrific product that lots of people like that is still, I think the Pixel watch getting as good as it has is like a little bit of a ding in the case for the Apple watch because there is now like a meaningful competitor in this space, which there hasn't been for a long time. but like people who have an apple watch like love it like it is it is a it is a like beloved personal belonging in a way that all maybe none of these other gadgets are for people it's it might be weird as the wearables lady that i actually had the apple watch in my list at three or four uh depending on how this this ranking was gonna go um but you know i can are i can agree with it being at four just because one it is a fairly specialized and niche device in a way that a lot of the remaining gadgets are not um it is still a thing where i have to talk to people will be like oh well i don't give a crap about uh fitness tracking so why would i ever have it that I think, for me, even as a wearables person, I would have not put it in the top two.

44:12And also, to your point, David, the fact that the other smartwatches in this space have been catching up, whereas, you know, I just reviewed the Apple Watch Ultra 3, the Series 11, and the SE3, and the SE3 being the standout among them, I was kind of like, what are we doing here a little bit um i feel like they have been coasting a little bit as far as wearables go because they were the best for so long and people do love them but for people who are really really really crazy into the self-quantified space actually garmin i think is probably a little more beloved um android smartwatches are doing more interesting things partly because siri sucks so hard that, you know, I think it's a little difficult for Apple to really take the next step with the watch as far as like non-fitness tracking or health tracking features are.

45:09So for me, I actually think 4 feels right for the Apple Watch. It's obviously Apple Watch, great smart watch, like one of the best smart watches you can have. But again, Android users can't have it in a way that, you know, some of the other devices on this list can be used outside of the walled garden like an ipad you don't need to be ensconced in the rest of apple's um you know maybe that's i'll give that to the ipad you don't need to be ensconced in the wall garden to use an ipad or and or home pod or an apple tv but you really need an iphone just from a based functionality level you need to be an iphone user for the for the apple watch uh and you know i i think for as the wearables reviewer, it feels right to me based on this list, which may be surprising, may not be surprising, but that's where I put it.

46:01I think that's a good case. And I think to me, the fact that Siri continues to sabotage a bunch of these devices is super fascinating. And also, I do agree that what we're starting to see is upside from other companies and other products. The Pixel Watch is just doing more interesting stuff like you said the gemini thing gives it new ideas and new features and new stuff it can do for you in a way that like siri just can't uh and i'm also sorry to everyone who has had their devices go off mine has gone off twice during this particular conversation um i'm good with the apple watch here i think the apple watch is really good and has been like the standard bearer of its ilk for a long time but probably belongs in this spot so i'm good at that um so now now we're down to the top three.

46:50Okay, let's pause here because what I think we need to do is just all say our top threes and then fight about it. But before we do that, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Zoe, the mall's about to close. It's impossible to do anything in 15 minutes. Oh, it's possible, Harvey. I mean, you can switch to T-Mobile in just 15 minutes. So you think you can find your auntie a sweater? Come on, you spent an hour buying jelly beans. I know, I do love jelly beans. Trust me. Now you can switch to T-Mobile in just 15 minutes. Plus, you'll get America's best network. No. Steve! No! Maybe I should switch to T-Mobile right now.

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48:13Oh, hey, welcome to gift wrapping. Whoa, Zoe Saldana. Hey, can you wrap these, please? Wow, iPhone 17s. You splurged. At T-Mobile, you can get four iPhone 17s on them. It's the perfect gift for everyone. I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe. Well, it's better than socks. So I have to trade in my old phone, right? No, at T-Mobile, there's no trade-ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift. Incredible. In fact, wrap up my old phone too. For my Aunt Rosa. Forget that. Aunt Liz will be jealous. Sounds like my family drama. Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with...

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49:56All right, we're back. So top threes, let's just name them all and then we can sort it out together. Let's do it. My top three were AirPods, Mac, iPad. Not in that order. But I'm fine with having the iPhone in here. Whatever. We can talk about it. Allison, since we already know what your number one is, because we're going to argue about that in a minute. What's your number three? I think I put Mac at number three. Okay. more as a function that i want to put airpods at number two interesting okay um all right we're gonna have to fight about all three of these oh no so hard let's just do this and then we're gonna hash this out together allison just reveal your top three right now okay number one iphone steve jobs's iphone uh number two okay thank you david uh airpods number two feel very strongly about that.

51:00And three is the Mac. That's what I've got. Okay. V, what are your top three? Mine might be chaos, but number one, I put the AirPods. Two, I put the Mac and three, I put iPhone. Oh my God, this is so fun. We all disagree. I have the Mac number one, which was the single easiest choice I made of all nine of these, putting the Mac first. And I have, I guess if we're going by this rubric, I would have AirPods second and iPhone third. Oh my goodness. Wow. Let's just fight about first place because we all have different things in first place. But it does sound like one thing the two of you share is you both believe in AirPods very much.

51:41Allison, what's the case for AirPods at being near the top of this list? I think it kind of pioneered the category. You know, there was a time when it feels not that long ago when the AirPods came out. We were like, those look stupid. They will never catch on. You remember when you walk around and see someone with AirPods in and you're like, oh, that idiot. Like, what a dummy. Can I tell you a fun fact that I remembered prepping for this? So I reviewed the first AirPods. I was working at Wired at the time and I reviewed them. And one of my cons, I just wrote U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi. and somehow that made it into the story.

52:21So that's just now published on Wired.com. And I was right and I'm still right. And it just absolutely didn't matter. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I can't think of any other, I mean, it's up there with consumer products that have just like steamrolled a category where, you know, the knockoffs look like AirPods. They're, you know, you can get a decent inexpensive pair. You can get a more expensive, like, very good pair. It's hard to think of someone I wouldn't recommend them to. Like, my sister finally got a pair, and she's like, oh, these rule. They're really good. I'm like, yeah. They're in my ears, like, all the time.

53:05V, anything to add? You had this thing number one. I have at number one just partly because I think they are doing interesting things on the AirPod. Like, I just reviewed the AirPods Pro 3 and translation coming to them is, you know, did it work in a one-on-one conversation with my cousin who speaks fluent, cousin's husband who speaks fluent German? Yeah. And that was kind of wild. Do they work as over-the-counter hearing aids? So an accessibility device? Yeah, they do. Do they help me block out the world when I need to? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's just like an all rounder product that you can recommend to anybody.

53:44And they just immediately understand that this is like the goat. And it is a thing that I never have to convince anyone to buy, really. Honestly, the only times where it is a thing is when I'm talking to audiophiles and they're like, oh, you know, such and such has better X, Y, Z. But I see these at the gym. I see these on the subway. I see these absolutely everywhere. And even people I know who hate Apple really like AirPods. So it's just one of those quiet little devices that I feel like everyone I absolutely know has and has very little complaints about. And if their AirPods were to die, they're 100 % going out and buying another one and not really thinking about, am I going to switch to, I don't know, the Pixel Buds or the Samsung version of this or the Beats Fit Pro.

54:37Whatever the very good alternative is, and there are several very good alternatives, arguably with better sound quality, they're just going to go out and buy another pair of AirPods. So it's one of those products that is not only iconic, not only the best in its case, it's doing interesting things. And it's one of the few things where Siri sucking doesn't absolutely kneecap it because it's just a good little product. And yeah, and you can buy so many cute little accessories for it. There's a whole market to make your AirPods case look like something else. And I don't know, every little update, I'm just like, oh, yeah, these are the best.

55:16No question. Hands down. Love these love these things. I have so few complaints about them, just universally beloved. So that's why they were my number one. So I I agree with all of that. And I think the thing that really tipped it for me, because the case against, I think, as far as I can tell, is basically just that they're very expensive and they are very expensive. You can buy very good headphones for a lot less money. That's actually less true than it used to be because all the other headphones are getting more expensive as they add more features. And so the gap between like AirPods knockoffs and AirPods is less than it used to be.

55:52To me, the thing that really does it is I think if you ask most people, there's AirPods and there's AirPods knockoffs. Like there is not another brand that actually plays in this space. You either have AirPods or you have something that kind of looks like AirPods. And that's not to say there aren't lots of other good headphones. I have a pair of the Google Pixel Buds 2A that I actually like love to bits and wear all the time, despite the fact that I have the most recent AirPods Pro here all the time. But V, I think you're right that like if I look at all of these and the question is, where is Apple having the most consistently good ideas about how to make its product better?

56:32I think it's actually the AirPods right now. I mean, let's look at their latest launch. They've been so much better in just the last couple of years in a way that, like, basically no other Apple product has. Yeah, look at the last launch. Like, of the three iPhones that they launched, the three Apple Watches they launched, and the AirPods Pro 3, hands down, they didn't steal the show at the event. But hands down, I think afterwards we were all like, I think the AirPods Pro 3 are, like, low-key the best product, just the best of all of them. And just, you know, from people I was talking to during that time as to like, I had so many friends go like, yeah, fuck the phone.

57:11I'm not buying a new phone. Whatever. I don't need to upgrade my watch. I am very tempted at buying a new pair of AirPods Pro 3. And then they did. So it was just for, you know, going into this, what I was thinking about. I actually was thinking about the most recent launch and just how universal that was in my DMs, my comments, my life. So that's why I put them at number one for me. Allison, I'm not convinced to put it first, but I like him at second. Do you still like him at second? Yeah. Okay, good. So we're going to put AirPods at second. Finally, David wins one. How's that feel, V? It's in your face.

57:47Whatever. Now we're going to fight about the Mac and the iPhone, one of which is going to be first and one of which is going to be third. I think we've all laid out our arguments here a little bit, but Allison, I want you to know that I think the iPhone possibly should have been as low as fifth or sixth. Convince me it should be first. Because it is iconic. No. No, it's not? Oh, my God. I have said, like, four words. No, I'm saying that's not good enough. I'm just saying that's not good enough for it. Okay. Iconic. It is. Never heard of it. It is also like the AirPods. And I need to caveat that this is like very U.S.

58:34centric, but my my husband has an iPhone. He's not giving a second thought to like when it doesn't work anymore. Is he going to shop around? He's just like, what's the new iPhone? But that's true no matter what phone you have right now. Lock in is is not a not an Apple specific feature. It's because that's what happened to phones. It's I just think the way that Apple and it maybe is kind of a little. Cunning in the way that Apple has engineered it to be such an easy and comfortable device to step into and will last a hell of a long time. There are people walking around this earth with iPhones that still have home buttons.

59:20Just using them every day and they're fine. They probably also use their smart TVs. And they're like, that interface is totally fine. No problems at all. We're saving hundreds of dollars by not buying a set-top box. No, you can't beat it. It is the icon. It's the GOAT. It's, you know, is it the greatest phone at being a phone? I don't know. Like, any phone is... That's not a reason to be number one then. A thousand dollar phone is good. So here's the thing, Allison. I actually, I love the way you just framed it because is the iPhone the GOAT? like indisputably yes right like it is it if if we are just saying what is the best smartphone ever it is like obviously the iphone not debatable i think you could make a very good case that the i the current iphone is like the third or fourth best phone on the market and like yeah it's just the the idea that it is like notably better than the rest of its competition which like kudos to apple it generally makes the best product in its category right like it has a long history of doing that sometimes the category is dumb and bad like the vision pro uh sometimes it's you know for normals and so you guys hate it like the ipad but uh sometimes it's way over expensive set-top boxes like the apple tv the reason i initially had the iphone so low is like i i think i think a it's been a while since the iphone was sort of like capital i interesting.

1:00:53And I also think it might not be the best phone. And I think that it just makes it very hard for me to put it in first place that like I might like the Pixel 10 better than I like the iPhone 17. I'm with you 100 percent, David, because guess what? I had to upgrade my phone this year, not because I wanted to. I would if it were up to me, I would have kept my iPhone 14 Pro Max for another however long. But because I have to test Apple intelligence, that is the only reason I upgraded and when I got my iPhone 17 Pro. You're the only person, by the way, who ever bought a phone explicitly to get Apple intelligence.

1:01:26Congratulations, Apple. Somebody somewhere at Apple, somebody just got a bonus because you just said that. This is against my will. This is precisely just because I have to test these things and be aware of the product. If I was a normal, I wouldn't have bought one of these. I just want to make that intensely clear. I had zero desire to upgrade And I only did so as part of professional calculus. I bought this stinking phone after arguing whether I was going to buy the bigger Pro Max or the smaller one, which that'll be a blog, this whole existential crisis I had for a month. I bought the phone.

1:02:05I set it up. And I went, eh, okay, fine, I guess. It's a phone. I don't care. Screw liquid glass. I was genuinely and I have the Pixel 10 charging upstairs Pixel 10 Pro XL and I was like I don't know man I kind of just want to use this as my daily driver because I have to use it anyway to test the Pixel Watch 3 and all the freaking AI things on there and I don't know it's doing more interesting things this phone sparks no joy no joy I do not like the camera button zero joy whatsoever so that's why it's three for me i think those are the reasons that people love the iphone though you know it's like it's boring which is i think maybe a good thing in a phone i don't not as not from the perspective of like i write about phones and i want them to be better and cooler and more interesting but like i i think the iphone is sort of in the position that it is because it is so easy to just switch from one to the next and be like, great, a phone.

1:03:17It's still. It's ugly. Everything I needed to do works. Not a fan of the camera bar. Okay. If we're going on ugliest phone. V's petty grievances. We have a whole other. How much time do we have? They're petty and they're grievances, but I think a lot of people will agree with me. Okay. Why should the iPhone be so low though? Listen, it could have been lower if David had his way. I think putting it at three acknowledges the historical iconicness of the phone while acknowledging the modern foibles that make it so freaking boring. I think the fact that the iPhone has all of that iconic history is part of the reason it's not that interesting anymore.

1:04:03This to me is like the, I forget who it was, but somebody at Microsoft years ago was like, the reason Microsoft Word is so ugly is because anytime we move a button, some small percentage of our users revolt. But it turns out some small percentage is millions of people because millions of, that's how many people use Microsoft Word. Like, I don't mean to compare the iPhone to Microsoft Word, which I think is like a slightly more brutal comparison than I mean. But like, I don't think I just don't think this is like the sort of peak of what Apple is capable of right now, nor is it like the peak of the market right now.

1:04:40Like, I just think Apple, where you look at Apple's most interesting work, it is almost entirely not happening on the iPhone anymore. Apple's trying weirder, more interesting stuff on the iPad than on the iPhone. it's not all good but it's it's it's happening like the iphone has just been coasting to me like for years and and to some extent that's fine like i think you're right allison that like we probably should be treating these things as sort of appliances that your phone is like your refrigerator where you buy one and when it breaks you buy another one and actually the less you spend thinking about it the better in a lot of ways but i just i have such a hard time this is It's obviously Apple's flagship product.

1:05:23It's responsible for most of its business. It is the reason services exist. It's the reason it gets all that money from Google. Without the iPhone, Apple as we know it does not exist, period. It's that straightforward. And that continues to be true every day and every year. But I don't care about the iPhone anymore. In a very real way, I just don't care about this thing anymore. And to me, that's a ding on it. Also, people are just holding onto their phones for longer because they don't care about it. It used to be a thing that we were upgrading every two years because you had to have the new thing because the new things that were coming out were so exciting.

1:05:58I think it speaks to a greater malaise with phones in general. And just I was not happy about this purchase, not because I think it's bad. But because it's fine. It's fine. Because it's so fine. You're going to like your iPhone. It was such a thing. I'm going to be fine with it. It's just I have it because I need a phone. That is exactly why it is number one, because it is reliable. It is the GOAT. It's the one that people don't even think about it. We're almost like blind to it. It is so dominant. And it's so good at so many things, which is why it's kind of hard to see it that way. Like it's a really great case you're making for the iPad should have been much higher on this list.

1:06:52Listen, listen, I think the rules are majority rules. And I think David and I had the iPhone at three. V, I will just say what this means. If you go with me here is that we are putting Mac number one. Are you are you comfortable with putting Mac number one? I'm comfortable with putting Mac at number one, because if we are going to go with the iconic fabric of your life has been around forever. However, Apple wouldn't be where it is today without it. I mean, come on, it's the Mac, too. Allison, make the case against. Why not the Mac? I think because it doesn't have that stranglehold on the minds of people buying a laptop.

1:07:37I don't know. It feels like you were sorted into your Harry Potter house of like you buy a Mac every year or you go buy a Dell or whatever. And people are just kind of fine with that. I don't know. It doesn't feel like the one that you go get. So, okay, let me, here's why I put Mac first and why I had a very easy time putting Mac first. um i think starting with the m1 and the the switch to apple silicon uh the macbook in particular became so vastly superior to all of its competition in terms of like what a what a most people want from their computer obviously if you don't like a gaming pc you're doing a different kind of thing and there's sort of a world for that but for like a average everyday mainstream computer use the Mac has so utterly left its competition behind.

1:08:34It is much more powerful. The battery lasts much longer. It's nicer hardware. All those other computers have gotten more expensive too as chips have gotten harder to get. And like the difference between what Apple is trying to do and what all of these Windows manufacturers are trying to do has actually shrunk, except that Apple is just better at it right now. And it has built such a lead in particular because of Apple Silicon that to me, I went through all of these and it's like, okay, if you wanna buy any of these products, you're like, which one should I buy? I'm gonna have more questions for you, right?

1:09:08Even if you're like, what phone should I buy? I'm gonna be like, what phone do you have now? What features matter the most to you? Are you a Google person or like, whatever. The Mac is just the laptop you should buy. If you're like, what laptop should I buy? I literally don't have any more questions. you're going to have to talk me out of recommending you a MacBook because it is just by a mile the best laptop on the planet. And I think the Mac Studio is also really good. The Mac Mini, the M4 Mac Mini is like my favorite computer on earth, which slightly biases me. It's what I'm using right now.

1:09:45It's teeny tiny. It's super fast. It's cheap. It's great. All the way down to like the M1 MacBook Air that you can still buy at Walmart is still better than just about any PC you'll find anywhere. The Mac just like won. And Apple had a bunch of weird ideas about it for like a decade and then fixed them all. They put the ports back, they fixed the keyboard, they improved some of the designs. Like it's just, they're just excellent devices and they are so much better than anything else out there right now that to me it was like the Mac line is just absolutely crushing it in a way that I can't think of anything else at Apple crushing it.

1:10:20Except apparently the AirTag, which is, it's like it's like coca-cola and air tag are the two biggest brands in the world apparently kleenex yeah no i think all right i can be convinced here um because i uh i'm sorry to say this out loud on uh the verge cast but i don't really care about laptops like i don't care about a computer okay you just got all your credibility as a phone reviewer back so congratulations okay But I got this MacBook Air, the M1, and I was like, holy shit, this is a great computer. I love this. And I've not had feelings about a laptop computer like that before. Was it the battery life?

1:11:01Like the thing that happens when all of a sudden you stop thinking about where you're going to charge your computer next is like genuinely kind of life changing. Yeah. Like I walk into a coffee shop, everyone's crowded around the outlet, and I'm like, I'll sit at the bar because it doesn't matter. Okay. And also I'm going to, I will ding the iPhone because of what you said about the Mac mini, because if we had that for the iPhone, like a smaller, less expensive, basic version, that's great. I think that would, that is something that the iPhone lineup is missing and has had in the past, but the iPhone 16E kind of sucks.

1:11:38and i'm like annoyed that that's the the thing i have to recommend when it's like you don't care about your iphone you want to pay out of pocket you don't want it to be out a thousand dollars like okay buy the iphone 16e you're gonna get more years of software updates and whatever that one is like if i when i think about the iphone 16e as opposed to like the pixel a series the a series is Google making a bunch of thoughtful decisions about what features you sort of do and don't need. And it doesn't always get them right, but it is at least sort of it's saying we're going to give you the best of some stuff and much less of other stuff in order to give you like most of the phone for a lot less of the price.

1:12:20Apple is just like, here's old shit in a phone. You can have it. And that's just that feels worse. Like it's less of everything, not less of some things. And that feels like a worse trade off. All right. We're putting this in, we're just all going to look at this ranking and see how it makes us feel. Right now we have Mac number one, AirPods number two, iPhone number three, Apple Watch number four, AirTag five, iPad six, Apple TV seven, HomePod eight, and Vision Pro nine. We're all just going to look at this for a minute and decide if this feels right to all of us. I can live with this ranking.

1:12:57It's not the one I came in with, but I can understand why we landed where we did. I'm still staring at this now if you just left it up to me I would just swap iPhone and iPad and feel perfectly happy about it but we're not going to do that and I'm going to get over it You want to talk about the iPad for another 30 minutes? No, I'm over it It's fine, all the Delta pilots who used to yell at me about how they love to use iPads are going to start to yell at you and I think that's a terrific outcome of this podcast so we're going to be just fine Anything on here feel wrong to either of you, this is your last chance to really get your thoughts out there.

1:13:32I can live with this. I still think AirPods are number one, but as long as iPhone is not number one, I can live with this. Oh, can I tell you the other reason I didn't want to put AirPods first is I think the AirPods Max deserve to be punished. Okay. No company that makes AirPods Max is allowed to be number one. Yeah. You know what? I can live with that. I forgot about the AirPods Max. until you mentioned it. But I will say a surprising number of people on the New York City subway wear that out and are very passionate about it, even though I think it's not a great pair of headphones. So, meh. I also just, like, aesthetically don't love the AirPods Max.

1:14:19This is purely a personal opinion. I know lots of people like them, but there's just something about the blockiness of it that never worked for me. Ergonomically, as far as over-ear headphones go, I think they're way too heavy and not great for long-term wear, which you kind of need in a pair of over-ear cans. So, you know what? Lock it in. I'm happy with this. All right. Allison, feel good? Yeah, I like it. Are you mad about the iPhone? You can say it. No, I'm just disappointed. I started thinking about the iPhone 16e again. It's making me sad. Yeah. So, you're saying if the iPhone mini were still around and were awesome, you would be all in on that.

1:14:57iPhone number one. I have a new number one. It's the iPhone mini and it cannot be topped by any of these other devices. Crappy battery life. But it's not an actual product. It's like the theoretical iPhone mini. I know. It's like the iPhone mini Apple refused to actually give us. Yes. Gave us and took away. Fine. Fine. I can move with that. Because if you're talking about the real iPhone mini, I'm just going to say two words. Battery life. I will charge that so many times a day. I don't care. I love it. If you want that, you can just have my iPhone 16 which now dies at about 4.30 every day. Oh, no.

1:15:30Let's see. That's not good. I've been using it all day. I'm at 31%, and it's 2.23 in the afternoon. No. Doing great with the iPhone 16. My God. All right. Doing great. Another reason it deserves to be at number three, the battery life on these things has gotten shittier over time. Let's kick that down to number six. What do you guys think? Should we move the iPad up a little bit? You are trying to sneak the iPad up there, and I see what you're doing. No. Stop it. The farthest the iPad goes is five, buddy. I do think there is a sneaky world in which we sit here for a while and eventually the AirTag just goes to number one.

1:16:07I think the longer we look at this, the higher up the list the AirTag might continue to go. The AirTag does not go beyond four, just as the iPad does not go beyond five. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. Well, just to recap, at number nine, we have Division Pro. at number eight we have the home pod those are easy at number seven we have the apple tv number six we have the ipad number five we have air tags number four we have the apple watch number three we have the iphone number two we have airpods and number one we have mac i feel good about this i'm good i've come around i've i've put all my feelings in into into myself and now we're good i've come out the other side i've done the five stages of grief for the ipad and i feel good about it i think we did it uh all right this was delightful uh to anyone who wants to disagree with us um don't email me email v and allison but if you want to if you want to get at us tell us what you think what we missed products that should have been on here next year polishing cloth who's to say uh call the hotline 866 verge 11 email us vergecast of the verge.com we would love to hear from you allison v this was delightful as i hoped it would be chaotic yes thank you all right that That is it for the Vergecast.

1:17:20Thanks again to V and Allison for doing that with me. And if you have thoughts or feelings or think we should have put different things in different orders, I genuinely do want to hear. This is a really fun exercise because it makes you think differently about like what matters and who cares about things. And we all came at it with really different sort of rubrics about what matters. And I want to hear yours. Like I said, call the hotline 866-VERGE11. Send us an email, vergecastatheverge.com. All of your thoughts. We want to hear everything. Until then, the Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

1:17:49The show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. We will be back on Friday with just all of the news. It's somehow, it's the holiday season, and there just continues to be news because the AI companies keep doing AI things, and we have a lot to talk about. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.